Microsoft torpedoed OneDrive in the latest build of Windows 10 (Build #9926). While this isnt an upgrade killer for me, its a major setback, and Im not alone in this belief: theverge/2014/11/15/7225217/windows-10-onedrive-changes arstechnica/information-technology/2014/11/onedrive-getting-worse-to-get-better-in-windows-10/ winsupersite/windows-10/heres-whats-really-happening-onedrive-windows-10 Im really hoping that Jason Moore and the OneDrive team at MS dont end up screwing the pooch (metaphorically speaking, of course) on this one and doing what Steve Sinofsky did with Windows 8 - actively disregarding the feedback of preview build users. This leads to shoddy releases and a complete lack of consumer enthusiasm. If they *do*, however, I offer a few bits of advice to the upper echelons at Microsoft: A) Find alternative ways to implement the removed functionality. This could take the form of a new UI overlay (a path which the Windows team has already started down with 10), a configuration menu buried under ten layers of controls (like most of the advanced Windows options), or reasonable defaults where Folder-level sync is the default, but the option to sync individual files is placed somewhere for those who care enough to find it. Simply cutting a feature because someone is confused about it would, if applied through computing history, result in us all still using cassette tapes to listen to music and carrying around reams of paper to transfer documents. 2) Fire Jason Moore and anyone associated with management-level decisions for OneDrive. A regression of this caliber in user-experience land, even for Power Users such as myself, is completely unacceptable. When you pull the one feature of a product that was a marketing point in previous versions, you undermine your entire product strategy and take out your management credibility in the process. 2.1) While youre at it, waylay anyone and everyone who is responsible in any way for IE before version 9. Also, the entirety of your Sales + Marketing departments. I assure you that nothing of value will be lost. D) Should you decide to actually listen to your users in this case, keep in mind that you dont just serve the end-user who sits in an office all day, but youre working with/for professionals who *do* understand the basics of how to administer an operating system and are willing to explain to others the dirty details of what has changed and why. Make this information available to everyone early on, and major changes like this could become completely unnecessary. As it stands, Im still planning on updating my shit to WinX when it finally hits RTM, but I will *NOT* be using OneDrive at this point. As I laid out in my feedback from the feature, being forced to sync all or nothing when it comes to folders in cloud storage is a non-starter on a device that only has 25GB total root storage available. (P.S. Unless you restore the ability to set the OneDrive folder to an external device [SD/USB storage], youre fizzucked either way. Basic laws of mathematics dictate that I cant fit 20GB of data into 15GB of available space. And no, I dont have my data subdivided so that I can sync folders at that level of granularity - nor should I have to.)
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 03:29:58 +0000
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